Theoblogicalhttp://wp.theoblogical.org
Theological Community, EcoTheology, The Church, The World, The BlogosphereSun, 02 Aug 2015 14:48:49 +0000en-UShourly1Climate as “Topic” on Denomination’s Website?http://wp.theoblogical.org/?p=30080
http://wp.theoblogical.org/?p=30080#commentsSun, 26 Jul 2015 19:53:38 +0000http://wp.theoblogical.org/?p=30080So I see this page on UMC.org under “What We Believe” and “UMC Topics” at http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/united-methodist-topics

I scan, see no listing for Climate Change or even Environment.

So I click “Ask A Question” and submit this:

I am asking this questiuon from the page http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/united-methodist-topics

I want to know if “Climate Change” or “Climate Crisis” is ever going to make this list? It certainly belongs on this list and is much more wide-ranging in its possible consequences, especially if we Christians and UMethodists continue to relaegate it to the “every once in a while mention” status it is getting lately, which is BACKWARDS from what should be the case. BACKWARDS because we are learning ever more about how serious this matter has been getting as we continue on our merry way with business as usual. PLEEEZ, pay attention.

A little confrontive, you say? You betcha. This cannot be left unquestioned? How is this NOT a “Church Topic”, “Huge Issue”, “Worthy of being ‘obsessed’ over”?

I go MUCH further than these rather obvious questions. Why is this even relegated to “News” or “Topics” or “Issues”. This needs to become a HUGE, Theology-shaping, Reformative issue for the very way we conceive of ourselves as a church in this time where the very issue of civilization and human survival is at stake? It is APOCALYPTIC, and yes, in the truly Biblical sense. It is literally to shape how we articulate our theology. And this is NO HYBERBOLE. Theologically, scientifically, or logically. It’s the reality.

I want my present home denomination to wake up to this reality, in a MUCH , MUCH bigger and obvious way. The Reformation we need here is much larger than that “Protestant Reformation”. This is something we can’t “Compartmentalize” and insist that the church is all about “Spiritual Things” , and by implication, NOT Social or Political or “Environmental Issues”. That is a most destructive version of Gnosticism. The deepest disservice that Gnosticism does is to cordon God off into this “Spiritual reality” that does not intersect and interact and flow through the creation in which we find ourselves. God is very much : “in, with, and permeates ALL” things. God is best conceived as a holy dialogue back and forth between Pan-EN-Theism and the One.*

* I have begun a book “Ask The Beasts” by Elizabeth A. Johnson that will be diving into the concept of the “Word become flesh” and how the word for “Flesh” is Sarc(s), which , contrary to the common conception, is different from the anthropomorphic flesh, but of “life substance”…not only human life, but life in the cosmos; God became “part of creation” and that in which it all “holds together” (Col. 1:17) The Colossians reference is mine, not Johnson’s (unless she happens to incorporate it. I don’t know yet. Haven’t gotten that far into it yet). Stay tuned for lots of postings here and on other social media as I read on.

(And yeah, I RT’d it and trying to embed it on Facebook. May just have to copy the text. )

]]>http://wp.theoblogical.org/?feed=rss2&p=295980Naming the Powers in an ecologically endandered worldhttp://wp.theoblogical.org/?p=29206
http://wp.theoblogical.org/?p=29206#commentsThu, 21 May 2015 20:33:59 +0000http://wp.theoblogical.org/?p=29206Christians supposedly have had practice in embodying via lifestyle what they preach, but also do not forsake the message for all…I think its a false choice to say “don’t scare people with dire descriptions of the climate crisis but show them what can be done”. We must do both, but I have a better word than “scare”…the message is indeed ” apocalyptic” , because apocalypse means “unveiling”… To pull back the veil and “name the powers” is to unveil an avenue for People’s movements on behalf of the health and well-being of our world (and everything and everyone in it)….the act of a vast majority to say no to an elite powerful few is a big part of “what we can do”. To be a participant in this is also empowering and encourages; meaning a ” resource for courage”. It has become just that in “Christian America”; to be counted amongst those deeply concerned about life in its totality, which requires a global reaching justice which no longer ” externalizes” costs to climate. We can no longer do this because the interconnectedness of life renders this false. On a finite planet, these costs , like the greenhouse gas that constitute the cause of many of those externals, is trapped with us on a shared planet. They really aren’t external at all.

]]>http://wp.theoblogical.org/?feed=rss2&p=292063The “Amusing” Social Webhttp://wp.theoblogical.org/?p=28496
http://wp.theoblogical.org/?p=28496#commentsFri, 17 Apr 2015 15:43:28 +0000http://wp.theoblogical.org/?p=28496One of those days when I am looking back over 20 years of “Web” and grieving the loss of the sense of aliveness for dialogue. Today, we get “Likes”. I don’t begrudge them at all when I get them, but sometimes they serve to accentuate how we rarely go beyond those and into conversation. I REALLY thought that over a 20 year time span, that we would have expanded conversations into and through all advances in technology. Now we have video chat, Facebook, Blogs, Google Hangout, Smartphones, etc. But we spend our time on those devices and services exchanging safe , vanilla interests, non-threatening surface things. On a day like today, I am disturbed by the expansion of the everyday distances we keep from one another into the supposed “opportune” wide-embrace of the Social Web. But I am beginning to feel that it has become drowned out by what Neil Postman describes as “Amusing Ourselves to Death” (to the media of that day— and perhaps now, into our day and our media).

]]>http://wp.theoblogical.org/?feed=rss2&p=284960Sam Harris vs Karen Armstronghttp://wp.theoblogical.org/?p=27320
http://wp.theoblogical.org/?p=27320#commentsWed, 12 Nov 2014 17:43:28 +0000http://wp.theoblogical.org/?p=27320Karen Armstong wrote this: to which Harris has posted a rather rude, incomplete, shallow retort in the style of his usual blanket assertions about the inanities of religion and the superiority of his New Atheism.

I am hopeful that Armstrong’s winsome depiction of Islam will shame and enlighten them, as it has me. They will discover that Hassan al-Banna and Tariq Ramadan are paragons of meliorism and wisdom, while we are ignorant bigots who know nothing of theology (of course), politics (Christopher, are you listening?), human nature (what’s to know?), or the proper limits of science (um … narrower?).

Nice, Sam. You say : “They will discover that Hassan al-Banna and Tariq Ramadan are paragons of meliorism and wisdom” , also something Armstrong doesn’t come anywhere close to saying. So who’s being hyperbolic , here?

And then , it’s right back into the straw man arguments Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens are and were fond of:

I can’t quite remember how we got it into our heads that jihad was linked to violence. – Harris

And since Armstrong also spends a great deal of time and text exploring the ACTUAL history of “jihad” , INCLUDING the occurrences AND THE HISTORY OF THE VIOLENT STRANDS, that is a particularly OBTUSE way of scrapping her entire argument in favor of the ones you intend to perpetrate in the first place.

Then Harris launches in to his usual diatribe, cataloguing the instances of human sacrifice.

I hope that Armstrong will soon apply her capacious understanding of human nature to these phenomena.

But she did and has, Sam. But you stay with your winning narrative; ‘Winning” in it’s capacity to draw the applause of gleeful New Atheists worldwide. You seem adverse to ACTUAL socio-historical analysis.

Basically, Harris is here, as he often is, a sarcastic jerk. He detracts from any balanced philosophical, socratic approach he may well be capable of employing.

Armstrong need only reply with one answer, as she does:

Like many religious people, I do not believe in demons. I abhor violence of any kind, be it verbal or physical, religious or secular.

But Harris proceeds on as if he’s never been confronted with such obviously challenging and confronting claims. He sticks with the same , tired, applause lines.

More from Armstrong:

To identify religion with its worst manifestations, claim that they represent the whole, and then demolish the straw dog thus set up does not seem a rational or useful way of conducting this important debate.

In the past, theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann, Karl Rahner, and Paul Tillich enjoyed fruitful conversations with atheists and found their theology enriched by the encounters. We desperately need such interchange today. A truly Socratic dialogue with atheists could help to counter many of the abuses of faith that Harris so rightly deplores.

Harris is also seemingly oblivious (or conveniently obtuse) about Armstrong’s main point (yea, even in the subtitle does she point it out):

why secularism is almost as much of a threat to the world as fundamentalism

Harris simply ignores this. I also suspect that his obtuseness here is not necessarily intentional. It is a matter of simply not getting it (because he seems not to have read her at all….except that his habit of returning right back to his straw man arguments about religion could well be the culprit….but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he DID read her at length, in which case he simply reduced her to the same narrow confines that he has set out in the first place.